Philips uWand Shows Another Way for Point and Click on TVs

The Philips uWand is not a new technology. But it is still to be widely adopted by TV manufacturers and implemented. At BroadcastAsia 2013, Philips was keen to showcase what they consider to be a better method for pointing and clicking on smart TVs and one which, in their opinion, provides an experience more akin to using a mouse on the desktop.

Wand-type remotes today, as employed by many TV manufacturers in their current line-ups, make use of a gyroscope to control the on-screen cursor. The Philips uWand however takes a different tack and works with the help of a built in camera in the remote itself. The camera looks at your TV screen and then helps to display the cursor. According to Philips, their uWand technology helps grant greater accuracy of movement to the user. In addition, they say the usage of a camera also eliminates the problem of misalignment which dogs gyroscope wand remotes.

The Philips uWand also has a built-in accelerometer. This allows the uWand to be able to offer gesture based controls. Most of the gestures are based around sharp movements of the wrist which can control actions such as moving between pages and channels. Philips displayed their HMP8100/93 media box, which is an Android based media streaming device available in China only, to showcase how the uWand would work in practice.